"Let's go, the time is ripe."
Albus Dumbledore seemed a bit hurried. He raised his magic wand and blasted away the Dementor that had been hissing at him, then quickly pulled the little wizard out of the Room of Requirement.
"Am I leaving the loop?" Ian realized he hadn't done anything yet, and felt like the two old men had finished all the work. He hurriedly stuffed all the magic potions into his money bag.
"Yes, it's time."
Albus Dumbledore walked in front.
"You never include me in your research, but I found something on my own." Ian said, pulling out a bottle of magic potion and handing it to Albus Dumbledore.
"Obviously, this loop isn't without limits, nor does it come without a price. The quality of the magic potion materials I scavenged in the later loops has clearly declined."
"This bottle of magic potion is just as bland as watered-down potions from Knockturn Alley." Ian had indeed been doing some research himself. He realized the power sustaining this loop was weakening.
Maybe.
If he went through a few more loops and took away more things, he might also be able to break free of the cycle. Of course, it was also possible that after the loop collapsed, Ian would be forever left outside the real world; no one could say for sure—precisely because he realized this, Ian didn't empty out all of Hogwarts in every loop.
"Not bad. Your discovery actually makes me even more confident." Albus Dumbledore's expression didn't change, but he glanced at the potion in Ian's hand with a flicker in his eyes.
"Did you and Professor Arthur King find any clues?" Ian was still thinking about the Professor of Alchemy. Throughout these loops, he'd observed and probed the professor more than once.
However.
Except for that one encounter in the library, his Living Map hadn't worked on Arthur King even once after that, so he simply couldn't catch any other suspicious traces.
"He isn't the trouble we need to handle. Though, he really is a bit of trouble in his own right." Albus Dumbledore didn't seem very worried about Arthur King.
It's like this in every loop.
"Fine, I'll investigate again once I get out." Ian actually realized he was a bit reluctant to let go of the loop. At first, he'd been eager to get out of it.
But, with plenty of time for learning in every loop, and the occasional bouts of doing whatever he wanted, he started to understand just how wonderful this endless loop could be.
After a while.
That sweet taste began to grow on him.
After all, the advancement path of the Ten-Mile Slope Sword God was indeed mesmerizing. Even though many things repeated over and over, the individual tutoring he'd sought out from various professors had boosted his strength for real—no diminishing returns.
"At the right time, I'll help you too." Albus Dumbledore took Ian to the Headmaster's Office, where he retrieved the Sorting Hat.
"After I leave, what about you guys?" Honestly, Ian still felt reluctant to part with the old headmaster and the Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, who had helped him selflessly through every loop.
"That's a question you'll have to find the answer to yourself. Even if I tell you now, you probably wouldn't understand—after all, you need a deeper understanding of time and fate."
Albus Dumbledore led Ian briskly through the corridors. He seemed to be avoiding the question; after all, from Ian's perspective, everything here would vanish like smoke once he left.
The old headmaster had once said everything here was just a discarded possibility, abandoned by fate.
"Are you trying to keep me from being sad about this?" Ian sidled up to Albus Dumbledore. The old headmaster handed him the silently brooding Sorting Hat.
"If a sacrifice has meaning, there's no need for sorrow. When the old leave, new ones come to take their place." Albus Dumbledore walked all the way to the front of a lounge.
His earnest tone ceased abruptly here.
"Are you ready?"
Albus Dumbledore turned to Ian.
"Ready for what? Can I break out of the loop here?" Ian looked in surprise at the door before him. If he remembered correctly, this was the staff lounge.
"Your discovery matches our conclusion, which is that no matter how intricate this loop is, it has never surpassed the boundaries of magic."
Albus Dumbledore explained to Ian, "Yes, it's still just a kind of magic. And if it's magic, there is always a way to break and undo it."
"The answer we've found is that it takes three people whose magic power has reached the limit, casting together. So, little Ian..." With that, Albus Dumbledore kicked the door open with one heavy boot.
No magic used.
Just the foot.
People from Gryffindor College have always had this sort of sentiment.
"Come and meet the moment when your magic reaches the human extreme." Albus Dumbledore strode straight in, and Ian followed to see Professor Quirrell wearing a panicked and helpless expression.
That poor sod had just been blasted to the sky by Ian today. He was now carefully applying magic potion to his wounds and, upon seeing Albus Dumbledore enter, frantically covered himself with his robe.
"Headmaster... this... what's going on?"
Quirrell did his best to hide the wounds on his backside left by the explosion, but wore a look of bewildered terror. In terms of acting, he was actually a tad better than Arthur King.